1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is that of utilizing permanent magnets to magnetize a ferromagnetic article, more particularly where the magnetization method and apparatus involves permanent magnets that are moved several times in succession alternately toward and away from the ferromagnetic article intended to be magnetized.
2. Background Art
What may be termed an intermittent, interrupted, or, in other words: pulsed mode of magnetization which can utilize, as one option, a permanent magnet in motion, is disclosed in MECHANISM FOR PROVIDING PULSED MAGNETIC FIELD invented by Vladimir Drits, U.S. Pat. No. 4,816,965 issued Mar. 28, 1989. Successively applying, interrupting application of, and then re-applying a magnetic field a desired number of times to a ferro-magnetic article, for example, a cutting tool, is used in accordance with the DRITS patent to cause a reduction or equalization of internal stresses which an article so treated has previously acquired during its service life. Concerning relative motion effected by simple mechanical devices, the cited patent apparently maintains that the same results are produced whether the movement is of the treated article into and from a region containing a magnetic field, or else that the movement involved can just as well be motion of a permanent magnet moved to and from locations from which the external magnetic field about the magnet affects the treated article. A further motional option described involves movement of magnetic shielding material interposed intermittently between a source of magnetic field and the treated article.
A magnetic flux lines configuration shown in DRITS patent drawing figures indicates non-production of unlike magnetic poles on two directly opposite principal faces of the magnetized article, which is a vital intention given effect to by the present invention.
Interrupted magnetization applied to an electrochemical cell is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,409,471 issued Nov. 5, 1968 for a METHOD OF PRODUCING ELECTRICAL ENERGY USING MAGNETIC FIELD invented by Ferdinand V. Sturm and Gerhard Richter. An xe2x80x9cintermittent or interrupted magnetizationxe2x80x9d is said to enhance cell operation xe2x80x9cin a comparable manner as when a stirred medium is employed.xe2x80x9d Two figures show arrays of spaced-apart magnets in linear motion parallel to the principal planes of electrodes, and one figure shows an electromagnet that is replaceable by a rotating permanent magnet. No magnetic flux lines configuration is shown in the STURM ET AL patent drawing figures, nor does the text indicate what arrangement, albeit temporary, of poles on magnetically influenced material is intended. Teachings of in situ magnetization of components of a pre-manufactured battery, and of repeating an in situ magnetization process enacted on the battery as needed, are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,000,004 issued Dec. 28, 1976 for an ELECTRODE FOR ALKALINE STORAGE BATTERY AND METHOD FOR MANUFACTURE THEREOF invented by Sachio Takahashi and Yoshizo Miyake. Again there is no indication of where magnetic poles would occur.
The three cited patents are relevant in the background of the present invention, but information gained therefrom, together with general knowledge in the field, is not believed to support reasonable expectation of success at attaining the surprising results of the present invention.
The embodied invention is an outgrowth of successive discoveries made in a course of research using two counter-vibrated, ie., mutually to-and-fro moving, assemblies of neodymium-iron-boron magnets mounted with unlike poles facing one another across a gap therebetween to the two counter-vibrated arms of a mechanical device. The gap width varies rapidly between a maximum at which external magnetic fields about the two magnet assemblies are substantially independent with little or no flux in the gap, and a minimum gap width at which strong magnetizing flux contributed to by both assemblies extends across the gap.
Discovered while developing the strip magnetization apparatus disclosed in provisional application No. 60/187,772 is the fact that vibrating the magnetizing magnets assemblies alternately together and apart induces a stronger magnetization of a ferromagnetic strip in the gap between the two assemblies than if the same strip were between them with them held stationary.
Subsequently it became apparent that parallel ferromagnetic strips or sheets separated by a thin layer of non-magnetic material such as paper could be magnetized at the same time., in the same fashion of subjection to intermittent strong flux between the vibrating magnet assemblies as with an individual sheet. Thereafter, there was one further step to take, to see what result would obtain by magnetizing, by the same method, the closely spaced ferromagnetic planar electrodes of a pre-manufactured commercial example of a nickel-metal hydride battery.
Incorporated herein by reference is the matter in provisional application No. 60/230,452 of an amazing finding that when a battery with vertical planar ferromagnetic electrodes, not initially magnetized, is placed between the same pair of counter-vibrated magnetizing assemblies as used for making sheet magnets, the current drain property of the battery will afterwards be found to have been affected alternatively in either an increasing or else decreasing manner, depending on end-for-end orientation of the battery in the gap between the magnetizing assemblies. This result is totally unknown in the relevant prior art literature.
The embodied invention may be summarized to be a product or kit which groups together two mechanically counter-vibrated permanent magnet assemblies having magnetic poles of unlike sign which intermittently mutually face one another across the narrowest width of the variable-width gap therebetween, with one or more ferromagnetic articles having two opposite principal faces each, where the principle faces are of substantially congruent shape with the inward-facing faces of the two mechanically counter-vibrated permanent magnet assemblies. Whatever the ultimate account may be regarding precisely how and why all results of practicing the invention occur, the invention is susceptible to uses which go well beyond, without excluding, the original proposal to magnetize a strip of ferromagnetic material in a gap made alternately narrower and wider between counter-vibrated magnets.